


charmed the judge's seat

by sadlikeknives



Category: Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly
Genre: Alternate Universe - Night World Fusion, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27038611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/pseuds/sadlikeknives
Summary: Benjamin January has found his soulmate.Now he just has to break the news to his mother.
Relationships: Benjamin January/Abishag Shaw
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9
Collections: Shipoween 2020 - The Halloween Ship Exchange!





	charmed the judge's seat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DoreyG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/gifts).



> Title from "Gris Gris Satchel" by The Band of Heathens.

"A werewolf, Ben? And an American, at that! Really, I think you can do better than one of those...animals."

Benjamin January reflected ruefully that he could not, in truth, be sure whether his mother meant 'animal' in reference to Abishag Shaw's status as a werewolf, or as an American. They were about equally likely. In theory, one might have expected Livia to be one of those lamia who was less opposed to the mixing of Night World types--their own family was about half witch blood, as evidenced by Olympe's position in the local Circle Midnight. In reality, she hadn't spoken to Olympe for several years after she'd decided to turn from her lamia side to train as a witch, and witch and werewolf were two entirely different things.

He said only, "He's my soulmate, Mama." It was the only thing there was to say, the entirety of his argument. He did not even know Shaw well, yet. He only knew that he was his soulmate, and that he seemed to genuinely care about justice, which was a rare thing in any kind of man. He knew that he might love him.

Livia Levesque sniffed dismissively, her attention on the sewing in her lap. She had stopped her aging while Ben had been away in Paris, around the time Monsieur Janvier had died, and now looked more like her son's well-preserved older sister than his mother. She would have to be careful about that, that the humans did not begin to comment, but she probably had a while yet before it would be a problem, as she had left off ensnaring men and was no longer competition for the other _placees_. "Soulmates," she said, derision dripping from the word, "are a story fools tell to children."

"I have heard they're making a comeback these days," Dominique said, and sighed dreamily. "Do you think Henri might be my soulmate?"

Ben and Livia shared a doubtful look, and Livia told her youngest, "Don't be silly, Dominique," albeit with little hope that Dominique would stop being silly about Henri Viellard. Ben almost wanted to laugh at that situation. It was common among New Orleans' Night World families of color to place their daughters with the sons of human planters—why shouldn't they make some money off the humans, after all?--but if Livia had had any notion Dominique would fall in love with the man she surely would have chosen a Night World match for her. "He's human. Not that it matters, since it's not real anyway."

"It's real, Mama," he told her. "I know it's real. I felt it." He had heard Shaw speak in his _head_ , he did not say.

"He's a _man_ , Ben!" Livia snapped. "Not that we care, but you know how the humans are. And speaking of the humans, he's white, and he doesn't even have the decency to be rich! What are you going to _do_? How will you _live_?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "We could return to Paris, but--"

"Oh, no, Ben," Dominique said quickly. "You couldn't take a werewolf to France. Not after that business in Gevaudan last century."

"But that," Ben agreed. And even if Shaw were not a werewolf, Ben did not think he would do well in Paris. He watched as Dominique tugged on the threads in her hand and the strip of cloth she'd been working on transformed itself into a ruffle, a process that never ceased to seem like magic and which even now put a lump in his throat at the thought of Ayasha, his desert witch of a wife. He swallowed it down and said, "We'll figure it out. Somehow. Anyway, it's early yet, soulmates or not, for that kind of talk."

Livia said waspishly, "You should leave off this foolishness and look for a match with a nice lamia girl."

"Mama," Ben said, practical as she had taught him to be, "what nice lamia girl would have me?" Most nice lamia girls of color did as Dominique had done--or, well, had been intended to do--and found a human planter's son to feed off of both literally and financially, or else they made a match with a nice lamia boy of color who had some money to his name, not a piano player and surgeon living in his mother's _garconniere_.

"You could still do better than an _American werewolf_." Ben said nothing. There was nothing to say. Eventually, Livia sighed. "Well," she said, stabbing at her sewing. "I suppose it is what it is."

Ben stood, then bent to kiss her. Livia fussed at him to be careful not to muss her sewing, although of course he, widower of a seamstress, would never do such a thing. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," she warned him, and waved him off. "Go on with you. Don't you have some white girls to teach the piano or some such thing?"

He did not, but he accepted his cue and excused himself so his mother could rail at Dominique about his poor choices unimpeded.

***

The cup Shaw had been presented with was chipped, but he knew better than to assume that it reflected upon Livia Levesque's household or finances in any way. She might have chipped it deliberately to present it to him, for all he knew. That this audience had been granted at all was the next thing to a miracle. He could deal with a chipped cup.

"Do you have family, Mr. Shaw?"

"Two brothers, ma'am," he said steadily, wincing internally at his pronunciation. As with the cup, it would not surprise him if Livia Levesque spoke flawless English, but this interview would unquestionably be conducted in French. "Tom and John. They don't live in the city. They're in the fur trade." He was volunteering too much information and he knew it, but he couldn't help it. Livia Levesque was never going to _like_ him, much as he suspected he was never going to like her, but he needed her to accept him. She was a powerful woman in the local Night World community, and more importantly, she was Ben's mother.

"Unusual names for your kind."

He could have pointed out that her family's names were unusual for their kind--not a flower or tree among them. Livia and Olympe were witch names, unsurprising considering how much witch blood the family had, and while Dominique might have been a witch name as well, Benjamin was decidedly human, the sort of name one chose to blend in. He could have said something along those lines, but he was smart, so he didn't.

"Yes, ma'am," he agreed. "My mother wanted us to be able blend in if we needed to." The widow Levesque, despite knowing as well as he did the sort of thing he'd been thinking about a moment before, said nothing, but judgment was plain in every line of her carriage, the precise set of her head and the arch of her eyebrow. Shaw had a horrible suspicion that she knew his own given name, which was _not_ in the bland line of 'Tom' and 'John' and had, his parents had been dismayed to learn after it was too late, turned out to be a _woman's_ name besides, but that was too long a story to volunteer to this woman, at this time.

"There are a lot of werewolves in the fur trade, I am given to understand." The curl of her lip said that she thought it a fitting job for them, but there was, he thought, something else underpinning it that he was missing.

"Yes, ma'am."

"But not you."

"No, ma'am. Not me."

Madame Levesque studied him for a long, silent moment, still and cool in that way only vampires could be: snakelike. Then she turned to her son and said, "Ben, go see what's keeping that girl with the fresh coffee."

'That girl,' Shaw assumed, was the maid, a human woman in her fifties or sixties, he'd seen in the courtyard when he'd been let in through the door reserved for family and those who didn't deserve the front door. He had no illusions, as both an American and a werewolf, which was the case for him.

Ben turned to look at Shaw, and a moment of that silent understanding passed between them. _Please don't kill my mother while I'm gone,_ Ben's eyes said, and Shaw's said in return, _I really think the other way around is more likely._

"Ben," his mother said sharply.

"Yes, Mama," he said, and rose and left the room, moving silently, lightly, leaving his mother alone with an unrelated white man. The humans would have a fit.

"Take your time," his mother called after him, and then returned her attention to Shaw, who remained still under her gaze like a rabbit when the predator was near. "Well?" she asked. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I love your son," he said. It was the only thing he could say.

Livia Levesque scoffed. "Love. What good is love?"

"Not much," Shaw admitted, to Livia's clear surprise. "You can't live on it. But it's all I've got."

Livia stared at him for a long moment, then shook her head a little and looked out through the shutters at the Rue Burgundy. "Where did I go wrong?" she muttered. Shaw had to admit he didn't know what she meant. Her elder daughter was a highly respected member of Circle Midnight, her younger well-situated as the mistress to Henri Viellard. Ben, well, Ben was himself. If he had been Shaw's son he might have steered him toward a more practical profession than his twin passions, but this would have happened regardless, had they ever crossed paths.

He understood then, or thought he did, what she feared. There was no place in any corner of the civilized world, Night or otherwise, for a white werewolf and a black vampire, especially not when they were both men. But his brothers were in the fur trade, and out in the wilderness there was no one around for months on end to care who or what you were. Maybe, if Ben had been anything but vampire, it might have been a solution, but vampires needed to be around people so they could feed, and even if it had been a solution it would have only been a temporary one: as his own family had discovered the hard way, the humans pushed farther into the wild every year.

They had discussed moving to one of the Night World enclaves, but all that would get them was Shaw treated as second-class instead of Ben, and besides there was not much call for piano players in such small, isolated communities. Surgeons, maybe a little, but not enough to be worth talking about. No, New Orleans was the best option on the table, and New Orleans was where they were going to have to figure out how to live.

He sought a way to reassure this matriarch that he was not planning to take her son away from her again when she had just gotten him back, without giving away that he thought that might be a concern that she had. And maybe it wasn't. From what Ben had said, maybe she was just concerned about how it would _look_ for her only son to run off into the wilderness with an American werewolf. Unfortunately, Shaw was not good at words, even in English, and so ultimately he said nothing, and let Livia Levesque struggle through her moment of self-doubt on her own.

She was probably just thrilled that he was witnessing it.

Mercifully, Ben came back in then and saved Shaw from awkwardness and, probably, eventual death. "Mama, Bella says you told her not to make fresh coffee." _For the American, who was also a werewolf,_ went unsaid, but heard by all.

"Did I?" Livia asked. She raised her cup to her mouth and took a sip. "It must have slipped my mind." Ben hovered, hesitant and unsure about what to do, for a moment too long, and she snapped, "Honestly, Ben, you're old enough now to know your own mind. This is a terrible decision you've made--"

"It wasn't a decision, Mama--"

"Yes, it was. The soulmates business, if that is even real, fine, you had no say in it. The rest," letting it matter, Shaw filled in, "that was you. You'll have to figure it out. I cannot do it for you. I don't know what else you want from me."

"He wants to know you're not going to have me killed, ma'am," Shaw said quietly.

"Monsieur Shaw," Livia said, so cool butter would not have melted in her mouth, and somehow giving Shaw the notion he had said something stupid, "Unlike my son I have been a citizen of the Night World of this city for these years since you came down the river from Kentucky. I know enough of you to very much doubt I could."

Well, Shaw thought as he sat, absorbing that. That was certainly something.

Ben was similarly struck speechless, and Livia continued, "I won't be seen entertaining an American. You'll have to work that out for yourselves. But it is what it is."

"I--thank you, Mama."

"If you want to thank me, convince your sister that Henri Viellard is _not_ her soulmate."

"I can make no promises there," Ben said solemnly.

When he was released from the audience, Ben went with him, and they walked a full block from the house before Ben said, "That could have gone worse."

"It could have," Shaw agreed. It was not a blessing, but it was, he supposed, the best he was going to get. He'd take it. "Did you tell her my name?"

Ben looked startled by the question. "Should I not have?" Shaw just looked at him for a while, until Ben, an educated man, realized, "Ah."

"What's done is done," Shaw told him. And she might have already known, if she had already known Shaw by reputation. There was a thought. "We'll work with it."

"We will," Ben agreed, and Shaw couldn't help grinning. He liked the sound of that 'we' an awful lot.


End file.
